I ferried that 20,000th glass bead up into the upper atmosphere and stepped back for a little bit of a rest. Despite the fading light, there was a very clear halo around my copse of enhanced trees. It was especially helpful that the upper atmosphere was still experiencing brighter sunlight compared to the ground. That felt suspiciously like evidence that I was on a planet and not some flat world, but I didn’t stress too much about that. Every once in a while a cloud would block the god-ray, but for the most part, it was working great. The next project would be to get the clouds to dump their load so I didn’t have to pump as much water up from the watershed but for now I was satisfied.
I looked down on my domain and sighed in contentment. I received the [Eternal Spring] ability from the last level. Nothing wonky had occurred, just a basic ability acquisition. I was happy about that.
My second floor was now covered in a faint — almost imperceptible — glow. It was as if the sun was eternally shining down through a canopy of leaves and lent the area a peaceful appearance. In addition, it filled the air with the scent of spring flowers and freshly cut grass. I could not be happier with the change. It was a welcome change from the eternal doom and gloom of my first floor.
The effects of [Eternal Spring] were also amazing. I could already tell the change. Sickly plants healed in seconds and even the larger trees recovered from any damage they had accumulated over the years. My Treants also benefited, healing at a rate that was almost combat-relevant.
What intrigued me most, was how the additional experience affected my plants. Before my eyes, the smallest of my plants became more. Thicker, tougher, taller. I realized I was watching the level-up process from the outside. It was amazing and fascinating in equal measure. The best aspect however was it was these very plants that withered fastest due to the soul-drain effect of being in my domain.
That was no longer the case.
In a single upgrade, my forest went from stagnation to being on the verge of perfect health and only improving. Combined with the soldiers fighting within my domain, my mana was at an all-time high.
< Mana 1,880/1,990 >
The two highest-level humans hadn’t moved all that much, but it was made up for by the movement of their underlings. Just a little longer and I would level up once again.
My cooldown to resummon my Nothic was back up so I looked back to my first floor—
...
What?
Betsy? What happened to you?
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My terrifying beholder boss was sulking in the corner of her expansive chamber. Her eyestalks drooped listlessly and her usual excitable flying was nowhere to be found. Worst of all, she had deleveled to level seven and seemed to take the level reduction personally.
I comforted my little beholder with scritches behind the eyestalks as I scanned my halls for more information. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the ground during the day. Mostly to avoid the constant petitioning by the Miranda lady, but also because I found arranging the glass crystals in the sky surprisingly freeing. So it came as a massive surprise that every single one of my twelve Nothic and one Ceiling Horror were all level seven.
A glance to my second floor revealed that all my Treants were also level seven. That was to be expected since they were constantly being killed and respawned by Monstrous Generosity at five below my current level. What didn’t make sense was why my Nothic had reduced in level.
I made a cursory effort to detect if an adventurer had sneaked into my cave but turned up nothing. None of the traps had triggered, and there was no sign of blood or struggle to indicate someone had fought my minions. I didn’t believe I would miss someone — or something — entering my inner sanctum and my perusal reinforced that belief.
The most I found were small piles of beige sand scattered around the floor. It was as if someone had left a gingerbread trail throughout my halls but I already knew that no living thing had caused my minions to delevel. The sand did confirm that my minions had died and summoned Sacrificial Stone Golems because of [To Dust], but I couldn’t think of anything that could have killed them so.
It was only after my third pass over my first floor did it dawn on me. I had been leveling and gaining new upgrades so quickly that I hadn’t thought deeply about their effects. Everything had been happening too fast.
I brought up my skills and read and reread what I believed to be the culprit of my new predicament.
< Unstable Fusion: Items of your tier degrade after 100 minutes >
On its own, this line didn’t spark any warning bells. It was the downside to the fusion of [Resistance Enchant], [Damage Enchant], and [Armored Core]. It hadn’t seemed like such a big downside at the time, since I had gained the full freedom of all three abilities, but on further inspection, it might be as bad if not worse than [Soulbind Artifact].
There was an innocent little notification I had been ignoring since the beginning:
< You have crafted < Weapon > >
The blip of a notification popped up whenever I crafted something with my intent. Sword, shield, or...creature.
My Shadow Crafted Nothic ambled through my halls at level seven. Precisely at the peak of tier one. Any higher, and their crafted natures would trigger Unstable Fusion and destroy them. Two hundred minutes later, Monstrous Generosity would kick in and respawn them at five levels below my current level.
It took me several minutes to comprehend the depths of the soft-lock. Unstable Fusion was essentially a horrible downgrade. On the surface, it granted freedom to my crafting, but in actuality, it destroyed any real possibility of crafting anything high-level — and therefore useful. And worse, if I happened to be five levels above the tier threshold, my crafted minions would be locked in a perpetual loop of dying and respawning.
Well...
That was an issue. Or, not really. At 300 minutes per standard Nothic, my first floor would be operational in two and a half days. I could nearly halve the time by adding some Treants to my first floor. It wouldn’t fit thematically, but I wasn’t against it. If anything, it would be cool to add some fake vegetation to the maze which would only help by obscuring sightlines and making navigation even more difficult.
It was still a downgrade. A regular Nothic was missing forty-nine life and dealt regular physical damage compared to a Shadow Crafted Variant. That wasn’t the end of the world, but using crafted minions was a solid 8% increase in tankiness spread across twelve creatures. In a pitched battle that could mean the difference between victory and defeat. What was more of a problem was Betsy and my Ceiling Horror. I couldn’t revert them to their default states. They had too many functional modifications for the levels gained to be worth it, and — perhaps most importantly — I didn’t want to. I liked Betsy.
I had to hope that the Guards would leave me alone until I could resummon all my Nothic and figure out a method of cheering up Betsy. The worst-case scenario for her was I leveled up to thirteen and she died. Once that happened, she would respawn at level eight which would trap her in a cycle of death and rebirth as my two abilities cycled. I didn’t want to subject her to that, even without mentioning how that would leave my core defenseless for around half the time each day.
What I needed was more experimentation. Perhaps there was a way to craft a creature without intent. It may lose the extra life gained from the craft but would be worth it if it didn’t gain the downside of [Unstable Fusion].
For now, Betsy would remain crafted. If that was the case, then there was no reason why I couldn’t enhance her just a hair more with Unstable Fusion. A quick pulse later, my little beholder perked up as a gentle glow surrounded her.
Since my minions were back to dealing physical damage, I figured I should enchant Betsy with a non-standard element. It also amused me that I now had a creature that had access to damage that was both ‘evil’ and ‘good’. Regardless, with the Totem technology, she was still tankier than a Nothic five levels above her, and would deal more damage with all of her eyes so was still my most valuable minion. I couldn’t imagine a more worthy being to protect my core than her.
I couldn’t say that to her directly, but I tried my best with scritches and encouraging nudges. That seemed to cheer her up, and she was up in the air and dancing in no time.
I turned my attention to figuring out how to craft something without crafting it, but my attention was stolen by a kerfuffle occurring on my second floor.
----------------------------------------
“Bet ya ten silver ya can’t do a backflip off it!”
Ian smirked at the raging Treant struggling against invisible restraints not ten feet in front of him. The two other living trees protecting a chest had fallen to his squad’s efforts, and they had lured this tree to the point. Everything about this dungeon was weird. Not only had they acquired some items that they could sell back in Krimta for a solid profit, but the Treants were limited to a range around the chest. Something that Ian had not experienced or heard of in any other dungeon. At best, monsters were limited by doors or narrow passageways. Not invisible walls.
“I’ll take that bet,” Ian said. He sprinted at the Treant and jumped. The Treant's limb crashed down on him. At the last moment, they shifted to the side and missed him completely. He laughed, feeling more secure at being at one life than at any other time in his life. He kicked off the Treant's bulk and flipped backward as another pair of limbs whipped past him but did nothing to damage him.
“Hell yeah!” Ian cheered, as his squad mates groaned. It had taken some getting used to being at low life, but after some careful application of healing skills, he had managed to keep his life low while keeping his body healthy enough to move around comfortably.
The Treant groaned in frustration and stepped back into the forest.
“Keep it from retreating!”
Two of their party peeled off and herded the dumb creature back to the edge of its domain. While this was happening, the rest of the Guards laughed among themselves as they bet what other crazy moves they could do with the harmless monster.
“Hey, guys,” Menna said, calling everyone's attention. “Let’s just kill it and rendezvous with the others before someone gets hurt.”
A chorus of groans followed that announcement as the others professed their opinions on that idea. They liked messing around here. It was cathartic to treat a normally lethal dungeon monster this way. Dungeon fighting was always a deathly serious matter. Lives were at stake and each member had known someone who had died to a dungeon monster in the past. Despite their low levels, none of the Guard were complete newbies. Some of them had been stuck at the end of tier two for years if not decades.
“Aww, don’ be a spoil sport,” Ian frowned at the older woman. “This dungeon can’t kill anybody, haven’t you been paying attention? Here, I’ll prove it to ya.”
Ian stepped to the side and slammed a young sapling with [Wind Strike]. The tree snapped at the base, and the Treant roared in rage. Ian turned his back to the enraged Treant and bowed to Menna as he gestured to the struggling monster.
“See?”
Menna glanced at the monster with a pained expression. “We are running late as it is. Just finish it off and let’s get going.”
“Bah, fine!” Ian scoffed and drew his sword. He tossed a [Wind Slash] over his shoulder and raised his brows at the demanding bimbo. The arc of wind crashed into the Treant and stole the last of its health. A pale beige wave washed over the creature as its woody insides were converted to stone. “There, ya happy now?”
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“Take care of the stone golem, and we can head back,” Menna said, pursing her lip and nodding.
“Come on boys,” Ian turned back, gesturing to a few others, with an annoyed frown on his face. “Let’s break this livin’ lump of rock.”
Together several guards fell into a battle formation and charged the stone Treant. It rumbled and met their charge with stone limbs akimbo. Ian charged through the thrashing limbs with his good mood ruined. A stone limb whizzed down from above, but Ian ignored it, knowing that it would miss or somehow not deal damage. With his sword arm free, he charged the cold steel with his most powerful strike skill and—
----------------------------------------
“Casualties! Captain! Casualties!”
The scout burst through the undergrowth only to find the Captain already on his feet with his sword drawn.
“Where? How? Report!” A dark glower settled on Arcturus’ face as he seemed to vibrate on his feet.
“Ian from squad three was killed by one of the stone golems, sir!” the scout said as he pointed towards where Squad A had last been. “I repeat, the stone golems do not possess the mercy enchant!”
“Sound the retreat,” Arcturus called, already a dozen paces into the forest and using his many skills to speed his passage. A horn blared from behind him, shortly followed by two more, but by then he was at the site of the battle. A bolt of lightning slammed down at his side, and Miranda stepped out of the small crater dusting off her robes.
“Well, then. It appears I am not the only one who the dungeon is displeased with.”
Arcturus snarled and kicked at the pile of beige sand that was all that remained of the Treant, then he kneeled beside the bloodstained soil where Ian had fallen earlier. It was still warm.
“Back to camp, we’ve been tricked,” he turned on Miranda.
“Hmm,” Miranda murmured, ignoring the captain’s agitation and crouching beside the pile of sand. She carefully collected a sample into a small glass vial and tucked it away into a pocket. “Not necessarily dear. It may be the case that the Treants are the only monsters that truly possess the capacity for mercy within this dungeon. The Nothic deeper within may be just as dangerous as the Stone Golems spawned upon the death of a Treant. It would match the guardian spirits personality outside of dungeons quite well.”
“I’m such a fool.” Arcturus grit his teeth as his keen eyes scanned the woods. “I should never have left my men unprotected.”
“I wonder if I can acquire some slaves to test out this new development...” Miranda murmured.
“Milady, what is your verdict? Can we continue to train here? Or is the risk too great?”
“Perhaps,” the matron spoke her mind clearly on other matters. “It is impossible to determine just what has occurred to change the paradigm. The dungeon does not exude rage, though its deeper emotions are beyond my capacity to sense. There is a possibility that this is a warning to stay cautious and not to disrespect the gift it has given us.”
Arcturus narrowed his eyes in thought as he untangled the mage’s meandering explanation. “So be it. We convene in camp to rethink our battle plan. And to bury Ian.”
“As you wish Captain.”
----------------------------------------
Bloody hell, when it rains it pours. Well, I suppose the Stone Golems were explicitly hostile and attacked my minions so it wasn’t unreasonable they wouldn’t be affected by my equipped gear. Still, it was a damn shame what had happened. The bastard human had killed one of my trees, which made it hard for me to think that he hadn’t gotten what he deserved.
...wait, that didn’t sound right for some reason. Whatever, I would think of why later. For now, I could only hope the humans didn’t take that as a sign not to train here anymore, or worse. In case something...irrational happens, I would beef up my maze a little more. The captain and the mage had sounded reasonable, but I wasn’t feeling the safest with my current low-level protectors.
I began work on a sixth floor in my maze. This time I tried to vary the layout to be different from the other floors just for variety's sake. I outlined sections where stone ‘greenery’ would exist and tried to convey a sense of an underground forest. It wouldn’t be done for a while yet, but there was one thing I could do to make navigating my maze vastly more difficult.
I could flood it.
With a titanic effort of will, I reached down into the watershed and began pulling water up. The weight was immense, greater than any other singular project I had in my life. I felt my cilia ripple with the effort, but gallon by gallon I filled up the lower floors. At first, the water only reached ankle height, but as I stayed focused on my task, the lowest floor filled to the ceiling and it began overflowing into the second floor.
----------------------------------------
“Squad one reporting for duty, sir!” Christina saluted as she stepped into the dim light of the captain’s tent “What happened?”
The captain paced back and forth like a caged wolf. He paused at her entrance and spun to attention. “Lieutenant Liashen, report.”
“A stockade has been erected surrounding around a quarter of the dungeon’s outer domain. The task has been made more difficult because the edge isn’t straight and wiggles all over the place. Regardless, three more days and we will have surrounded the entire dungeon.”
“Good,” Arcturus paused. “We’ve had a casualty, Christina. Ian’s funeral is this evening. R&R for the rest of the day. Dismissed.”
“What?!” Christina blurted out. “I...damn. How?”
“The Sacrificial Stone Golems dealt a lethal blow after the Treant was felled. I will provide a full series of strategic adaptations tomorrow. For now, let your men rest.”
“Uh...yessir.” Christina saluted, then made to leave. At the tent flap, she paused and turned back to the captain. “Sir?”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Are you familiar with the Dungeon of Illusions?”
“I am,” the Captain’s eyes narrowed.
“Have you considered destroying the co—”
“This dungeon is not yet openly hostile,” the Captain raised a hand, cutting off the younger lady as effectively as a sucker punch. “Rest assured that everything that can be done to prevent a catastrophe is being done. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
“Yessir.”
----------------------------------------
It took the humans a long time to come back. I kinda understood leaving after the incident, but they only returned a full day later. They entered in full formation as if they had spent the last day and a half having their training beat into them by the captain. From the looks on the humans’ faces, I probably wasn’t all that far off.
Some of them looked angry or fearful, but the majority were stoic. As if they were resigned to the danger that they were about to face. I was ok with that. A little care was good for soldiers and would save their lives in the future. Plus, I liked how they didn’t just think I was a push—
Pain
Something entered my domain, and I gasped. My perception flickered around a golden sphere made of millions of tiny little golden threads. The threads touched my cilia and tore them, dislodging my fibers from where I had anchored them and ripping them until all that was left was ragged remains. It made it difficult to see and felt like a serrated needle jabbing into a vein. Slowly violating my internals with little regard for the damage it inflicted upon the way.
My cilia lashed out, as a blind pain-fueled rage settled over me. I attempted to rip and tear at the golden sphere but failed spectacularly. The little strength I had was sapped by the presence of the humans and by the time my brave little blue threads touched the golden sphere they were torn asunder from whatever the thing was.
With the little presence of mind I had left, I realized that the sphere bobbed up and down on its path. A head popped out of the top, and two legs from the bottom. Every once in a while I could also make out two arms from either side. It was that girl. Christina something. She marched with the rest of the soldiers as if she hadn’t just transformed into a vicious ball of death.
I fought back the irrational anger and tried to think logically. If the humans didn’t treat Christina differently then she might have only changed to my perception. I didn’t have eyes, so why would I see things as humans did? That meant that it wasn’t Christina who had changed, but more likely she was carrying something that was manipulating my perception. Also, considering how the captain was leading the group to the outermost Treant spawning location, it was safe to assume that they weren’t here to kill me.
Pain.
I winced as a massive branch of my domain withered as Christina moved passed one of the main arteries of my cilia. Darkness filled my vision, and I visibly felt the mana inflow drop as the rear of the formation fell out of my vision for a second.
This was unacceptable. If she kept continuing like that she would destroy all my progress. Progress that wasn’t easy to acquire since I couldn’t just expand into the forest. I vaguely sensed the captain stop the soldiers as Miranda inspected the forest behind them. They had noticed my domain shrink, especially since the [Eternal Spring] biome effect vanished from that area, but my attention was stolen by a notification.
< Mana 1,990/1,990 >
< You cannot level up while in combat! >
< Mana 1,990/1,990 >
< You cannot level up while in combat! >
Alright, that’s it. Christina’s gotta go. But how? I couldn’t ask them to leave, and I couldn’t force them to leave since my cilia were out of commission for the time being. That left my minions, but how would they respond to a bunch of Treants charging their position?
Pain
The humans decided to keep moving forward and they neared one of the great stone pillars supporting my entire network. The cilia within trembled and recoiled. No longer reinforced by the fibers, the stone crumbled, unable to support its weight. I blanched, as the huge mass of stone rumbled as it fell through the air in slow motion.
The humans scattered, but I could barely focus on them as my vision blurred as a massive portion of my domain rippled. The areas most densely packed with cilia stabilized, but those areas with fewer fibers dissipated. I gasped in agony as darkness filled out sections of my forest. I was now realizing the danger of not manually filling an area with cilia.
Screw it.
I willed my cilia leashing my Treants to detach.
The following battle was hard to make out. I had little vision of the area now, and the fact Christina was running all over the place just meant I was blinded further. In minutes my forces fell and shouting replaced the sounds of combat.
< Mana 1,990/1,990 >
< You cannot level up while in combat! >
I was feeling unpleasantly full as if I couldn’t contain the amount of mana within me. I wanted to level up, but apparently, I was in combat and couldn’t. It wasn’t my minions. It was me. The dungeon somehow was in combat with that golden sphere. I had no clue how that worked, as I had no instruction manual and couldn't even figure out how to ‘win’ so to speak. Everything I tried just washed harmlessly over the golden sphere. The human presence didn’t help, but it was as if the sphere was protected by something.
I gathered my will and waited for Christina to dip into a part of my domain that was most deeply damaged. Then, with a monumental effort, I heaved back on the few cilia in the area.
My cilia budged a fraction of an inch, but in that brief moment, I was separated from that sphere of gold.
< Mana 1,990/1,990 >
< You have leveled up! >
< You are now level 13! >
< Mana 0/2,374 >
My cilia crashed back down on the sphere. I whimpered, exhausted from the effort of separating from it for just a second. Christina then moved again which only shifted the torture device to new — unmolested — cilia.
I turned to my upgrade options. Maybe something there would help.
Xarquento's Intervention:
[Soulbind Artifact] no longer prevents creating artifacts
Starbound Stabilization:
[Unstable Fusion] no longer degrades items of your tier
Pairwise skill fusion no longer leads to instability
Deia's Request:
Sentients in your domain cannot be reduced below 1 life if you possess their souls
Gain 17 mana per hour per tier 1 soul in your possession
Double mana gain per tier of soul in your possession
I hissed at the options.
Who or what Xarquento was I had no idea, but it was nice the dude was intervening. The ability to create artifacts again was amazing and I would love to experiment with it. It didn’t even seem that hard to create artifacts. My great mural at the entrance to my cave came to mind, but also my level-cap-increasing craft usually prompted me with that annoying little notification.
Starbound Stabilization was more ambiguous in its effects. If [Unstable Fusion] no longer degraded items, then I would be able to elevate Betsy and all future eldritch horrors up to my current level. In addition, it promised that future skill fusions wouldn’t have terrible downsides which I appreciated even if I didn't understand the exact mechanism by which they happened. I did note that it said pairwise fusions so fusions with three skills would still come with downsides.
They both were amazing skills and solved a problem I had, but neither solved my immediate concern: The humans were knocking at my front door, ripping up the lawn, and I had no way of getting them out.
The third option was strange as all can be. First of all, wasn’t Deia the name of the predominant goddess in this place? What was she doing in my upgrade options, and why did a goddess give two squats about little old me? Also, it seemed a little odd for the goddess to request I start...collecting souls?
Before I even thought about that option I needed to collect all I knew about Deia. She was a goddess revered by the people in this world. I didn’t know how far her influence extended but considering that this was a fantasy world, there was a very good chance that she actually existed and could smite me if she so chose. That meant atheism was off the table.
Second, I knew bugger all about the church. What’s her name — the girl who was with Martin — was religious. The few conversations I had eavesdropped on revealed that a good number of the Guards were religious to some degree. They cursed in Deia’s name and praised her in equal measure. Her church also did the whole slavery thing, but I didn’t have enough information there to know if Deia herself condoned that or if she just didn’t care as long as people carry out her other virtues. Hell, I hadn’t actually met any slaves yet.
All in all, I didn’t know enough. That seemed like a common theme. Which meant that I had to take the upgrade at face value. Deia was a goddess and she was requesting I start collecting souls for mana because she wanted me to prevent those souls from dying.
Bloody weird.
There was one last piece of evidence that I had. The last time I had received crazy upgrades like this was when Martin had breathed down my core. At the time I had experienced a strange dream sequence with penguins and an auditorium. They had offered a skill and — most importantly — that skill had been used to solve the Martin problem.
That wasn’t happening this time. I was on my own.